Showing posts with label John Broome. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Broome. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
The Gil Kane Punch of the Week 36: A Veritable Barrage of Blows!
From Green Lantern 51 (March 1967; reprinted in Showcase Presents Green Lantern vol. 3), comes this panel in the story "Green Lantern's Evil Alter Ego," written by (according to the credits) "Tiger" John Broome and drawn by "Pussycat" Gil Kane. Green Lantern fights Neoman in the 58th century!
Monday, February 1, 2010
The Gil Kane Punch of the Week 32: SKROGG!
Sometimes, I just like to open one of the Showcase Presents: Green Lantern volumes randomly and see if I can land on a page with a Gil Kane punch. The first volume is relatively punchless, perhaps indicating that the historical development of the Gil Kane punch evolved over the course of his Silver Age superhero work. By the time we get to the issues collected in volume 3, however, the punch has clearly become Kane's signature move, and we can find as many as five or six punches per issue.
Case in point: this image from Green Lantern 54, "Menace in the Iron Lung," written by John Broome, with a rare instance of Kane inking his own pencils at this time.
This is, by all means, a pretty standard Gil Kane punch, with Hal Jordan slugging the guard of the titular villain's estate (it does, however, get bonus points for the sound effect, "SKROGG!"). But a quick scan through the issue reveals no fewer than seven typical Gil Kane punches, plus several variations. The plethora of punches in this issue, in fact, makes me realize that a taxonomy of Gil Kane punches is long overdue, and I really need to get to work on that.
Case in point: this image from Green Lantern 54, "Menace in the Iron Lung," written by John Broome, with a rare instance of Kane inking his own pencils at this time.
This is, by all means, a pretty standard Gil Kane punch, with Hal Jordan slugging the guard of the titular villain's estate (it does, however, get bonus points for the sound effect, "SKROGG!"). But a quick scan through the issue reveals no fewer than seven typical Gil Kane punches, plus several variations. The plethora of punches in this issue, in fact, makes me realize that a taxonomy of Gil Kane punches is long overdue, and I really need to get to work on that.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
The Gil Kane Punch of the Week 26: Jump Him...All Together!
Here at Spec Headquarters, we have all our DC Showcase volumes specially flagged for Gil Kane punches: each book that contains Kane's art has relevant punches indicated by a sticky note. I mention this because, for today's punch, I decided to do a little experiment, where I pulled Showcase Presents Green Lantern vol. 4 off the shelf and randomly opened to a particular punch. Here is the result:
This punch comes from Green Lantern 71 (Sept. 1969), in a story titled "The City that Died," written by John Broome and inked by Joe Giella.
In the story, Green Lantern is mysteriously losing the power in his ring, but he has no problem taking out these crooks with plain-old fisticuffs. GL's word baloon is a little cut off in the gutter, but Hal nicely insults the thugs' body odor as he takes them all down with one punch.
This punch comes from Green Lantern 71 (Sept. 1969), in a story titled "The City that Died," written by John Broome and inked by Joe Giella.
In the story, Green Lantern is mysteriously losing the power in his ring, but he has no problem taking out these crooks with plain-old fisticuffs. GL's word baloon is a little cut off in the gutter, but Hal nicely insults the thugs' body odor as he takes them all down with one punch.
Monday, September 17, 2007
It's a Woman's World!
There are occasions where my academic research pursuits and my interest in comics fruitfully overlap, most notably in the representation of gender issues. And other than runs of Lois Lane covers from the 1970s, nothing has made the my academic brain explode more than this story: "It's a Woman's World," written by John Broome, drawn by Bob Oksner and Bernard Sachs, and originally published in Mystery in Space 8 (1952) and reprinted here in From Beyond the Unknown 11 (1971).
Now, those of you familiar with the Silver Age comic writing of John Broome, most notably in Green Lantern, know that the scripter had an ambivalent, at best, relationship with feminist issues of the day. He was responsible for creating Carol Ferris, one of the first female business executives on comics, but she spent most of her work time trying to figure out ways to date Green Lantern while also facing constant sexual harassment from one of her employees, Hal Jordan. So, we can imagine his view of a future Earth completely dominated by women to be, as we say, problematic.
This efficient 8-page story begins with a history lesson of how the matriarchal order of the 33rd century came to be.
This whole page is worthy of further study. First, Broome's predictions about the future do not seem terribly optimistic for women, and they certainly don't bode well for Hillary Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign. Broome imagines that first, in 2980, a woman will be elected "President of the Earth Federation," and then, 20 years later, women will then replace men in other key power positions. So, rather than have a gradual shifting of power that moves through a position of equilibrium and equality, the evolutionary change from patriarchy to matriarchy is sudden. By the 33rd century, the business world, politics, the military, and athletics all become dominated exclusively by women, while men, as the penultimate panel notes, are relegated to "the roles of domestics and housekeepers." (And, if Greg's cute little shorts ensemble is any indication, they are also objectified.)
However, the seeds to undermine the matriarchy are planted in young Greg Dexter's head, as he wonders why he must stay at home and vacuum while women get to do fun things like go to rocket cadet school. While Greg tries to imagine a different world, news breaks of an invasion from the planet Thebor, and a call goes out to volunteers for special training to deal with Thebor's harsh environment. Greg sees this as an opportunity and quickly volunteers, though his request is met with scorn and rejection because men do not have the natural abilities needed to succeed in combat.
After persisting, Greg receives admittance to the training program, but only to prove once and for all that men can't handle the rigors of military life.
As one might expect, Greg's first day at the academy is met with wolf whistles and catcalls, though Greg doesn't seem to mind the attention.
In fact, he seems to invite it, thus further perpetuating the "he was asking for it" sexual harassment defense 400 years into the future:
Greg manages to successfully complete all of the training, but when the raid on Thebor takes place, he's left to "guard the ship" while the women attack the target.
The attack, of course, goes horribly wrong, and Greg is the only one left to save his senior officer, Captain Stella. The rescue immediately warms up Stella to the heroic qualities of men:
(I also love the idea that, in the future, women's military uniforms will include fishnet stockings. At least the women are wearing flats and not heels.)
Upon returning to Earth, Greg is treated like a hero. Now, one would expect that Greg's heroism would be a big step toward equality of the sexes; however, that is not the case:
Instead, the patriarchal status quo is restored, with women returning to their submissive domestic positions and men returning to their dominant roles. In fact, Stella seems particularly glad to lose the yoke of leadership in the end.
Below are some of the letter-page reactions that appeared in From Beyond the Unknown 13, in response to the reprinting of this story. As you can see, the response was strongly negative, and 1971 readers found the story to be reactionary.
Now, those of you familiar with the Silver Age comic writing of John Broome, most notably in Green Lantern, know that the scripter had an ambivalent, at best, relationship with feminist issues of the day. He was responsible for creating Carol Ferris, one of the first female business executives on comics, but she spent most of her work time trying to figure out ways to date Green Lantern while also facing constant sexual harassment from one of her employees, Hal Jordan. So, we can imagine his view of a future Earth completely dominated by women to be, as we say, problematic.
This efficient 8-page story begins with a history lesson of how the matriarchal order of the 33rd century came to be.
This whole page is worthy of further study. First, Broome's predictions about the future do not seem terribly optimistic for women, and they certainly don't bode well for Hillary Clinton's 2008 Presidential campaign. Broome imagines that first, in 2980, a woman will be elected "President of the Earth Federation," and then, 20 years later, women will then replace men in other key power positions. So, rather than have a gradual shifting of power that moves through a position of equilibrium and equality, the evolutionary change from patriarchy to matriarchy is sudden. By the 33rd century, the business world, politics, the military, and athletics all become dominated exclusively by women, while men, as the penultimate panel notes, are relegated to "the roles of domestics and housekeepers." (And, if Greg's cute little shorts ensemble is any indication, they are also objectified.)
However, the seeds to undermine the matriarchy are planted in young Greg Dexter's head, as he wonders why he must stay at home and vacuum while women get to do fun things like go to rocket cadet school. While Greg tries to imagine a different world, news breaks of an invasion from the planet Thebor, and a call goes out to volunteers for special training to deal with Thebor's harsh environment. Greg sees this as an opportunity and quickly volunteers, though his request is met with scorn and rejection because men do not have the natural abilities needed to succeed in combat.
After persisting, Greg receives admittance to the training program, but only to prove once and for all that men can't handle the rigors of military life.
As one might expect, Greg's first day at the academy is met with wolf whistles and catcalls, though Greg doesn't seem to mind the attention.
In fact, he seems to invite it, thus further perpetuating the "he was asking for it" sexual harassment defense 400 years into the future:
Greg manages to successfully complete all of the training, but when the raid on Thebor takes place, he's left to "guard the ship" while the women attack the target.
The attack, of course, goes horribly wrong, and Greg is the only one left to save his senior officer, Captain Stella. The rescue immediately warms up Stella to the heroic qualities of men:
(I also love the idea that, in the future, women's military uniforms will include fishnet stockings. At least the women are wearing flats and not heels.)
Upon returning to Earth, Greg is treated like a hero. Now, one would expect that Greg's heroism would be a big step toward equality of the sexes; however, that is not the case:
Instead, the patriarchal status quo is restored, with women returning to their submissive domestic positions and men returning to their dominant roles. In fact, Stella seems particularly glad to lose the yoke of leadership in the end.
Below are some of the letter-page reactions that appeared in From Beyond the Unknown 13, in response to the reprinting of this story. As you can see, the response was strongly negative, and 1971 readers found the story to be reactionary.
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